ISIS claims suicide bombing at Yemeni military training camp

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Fighters loyal to the government at the site of a suicide car bombing in Aden.

Story highlights

Death toll now at 71

The site was a training camp for Yemen leader's Saudi-backed forces

Sanaa, Yemen (CNN)ISIS has claimed responsibility for a suicide car bombing Monday that killed dozens of recruits at a military training camp in Yemen's southern port city of Aden, according to the ISIS-affiliated Amaq news agency.

This month alone, airstrikes carried out by the Saudi-led coalition on two schools killed 14 children. The coalition denied targeting Yemeni schools, instead insisting it aimed for a militia training camp.

Another, on a hospital, also took 14 lives. The hospital attack prompted Doctors Without Borders to pull its staff from six hospitals in northern Yemen. The coalition said it regretted the aid group's withdrawal from the country.

The Saudi-led coalition of several predominately Sunni Muslim Arab nations began a military campaign in Yemen in March 2015 aimed at preventing Houthi rebels allied to Iran and forces loyal to Yemen's deposed President Ali Abdullah Saleh from taking power.

Fighting began in earnest in early 2015 when the Houthis drove out Yemen's US-backed government, led by Hadi, from Sanaa.

The conflict escalated into a multisided war, allowing al Qaeda and ISIS -- other enemies of the Houthis -- to grow stronger in the country, strategically located at the opening to the Red Sea.

A ceasefire went into effect in April, but the lull in fighting was short-lived, and peace talks that started that month reached a dead end by August.